Orpheus And Eurydice (3)

“Wherever beauty dwells,
In gulf or aerie mountains or deep dells,
Thou pointest out the way, and straight ’tis won,
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death.”

—KEATS.

“Silvestres homines sacer interpres que Deorum
Cædibus et victu deterruit ORPHEUS.
Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque Leones.”

—HORACE.

It may have happened to the reader, in his travels, to trace in some majestic mountain-land, amid rocky ravines, that which was, perhaps, in prehistoric times a terrible torrent or a roaring river. I mean, indeed, such a furious flood as is now unknown on earth, one which tore away the highest hills like trifles, melting them in a minute to broad alluvials, and ground up the grandest granite cliffs to gravel-dust, even as a mighty mill grates grain to flour.

You trace the course of the ancient river which when young vaulted the valley, which it had made, on either side with overhanging precipices, which now bend like silent mourners over its grave. And it seems to be dead and buried for ever.

Yet it may chance that, looking more deeply into its course to see if, perhaps, some flakes of antique gold are not to be found in the bed of the old water-course, you hear deep in some rocky crevice far below, and out of sight, the merry gurgle or voice-like murmur of a spring or unseen rivulet which indicates that the river of ancient days is not quite lost in the land. Unsuspected, like the sapphire serpent of Eastern legend, that diamond-clear rivulet has wound its mysterious course deep in the earth for ages, and, following its sound, you may come to some place where it again leaps forth into sunlight—little, indeed, yet ever beautiful. It is almost touching to see that diminished rill creeping timidly round the feet of giant boulders which it once rent in sport from the mighty rocks, and rolled into what were for it in its whilom power, mere marbles. It is small now, and very obscure, yet it lives and is ever beautiful.

Such a stream, which I traced yesterday in an ancient gorge in the heart of the Apennines, where the grey tower of Rocca looks down on the mysterious Ponte del Diavolo of the twelfth century—the most picturesque bridge in Italy—forcibly reminds me of the human stream of old tradition which once, as marvellous mythology or grand religion, roared and often raged over all this region, driving before it, and rending away, all the mighty rocks of human will, now tearing down and anon forming stupendous cliffs of observances, and vast monoliths of legend and faith. Such were the Etruscan and early Roman cults, which drove before them and engulfed irresistibly all the institutions of their time, and then disappeared so utterly that men now believe that the only remaining record of their existence is in their tombs or rocky relics of strange monuments.

But by bending low to earth, or seeking among the people, we may hear the murmur of a hidden stream of legend and song which, small and shrunken as it may be, is still the veritable river of the olden time. Many such streams are running in many lands, and that full openly on the earth’s surface, but this to which I specially refer is strangely occult and deeply hidden, for to find it we must seek among the _strege_ and _stregoni_, or witches and sorcerers, who retain as dark secrets of their own, marvellous relics of the myths of the early ages. These are, in many cases, so strangely quaint and beautiful that they would seem to have kept something of an original perfume which has utterly perished in the dried flowers of tradition preserved in books, or even by poets.

This seems to me to be the case with the incantation to Orpheus, which is now before me, written in rude dialect, which indicates, so to speak, the depth of the earth from which it was taken. I had asked the woman who gave it to me whether she knew such a name as that of Orpheus or Orfeo, as connected with music. This was the reply which I received:

ORFEO.

_Scongiurazione a Orfeo per suonare bene uno Zuffolo_. This is the invocation to Orpheus for him who would fain become a good player on the shepherd’s pipe. {227}

SCONGIURAZIONE.

“Ogni giorno io mi metto
Questo zuffolo a suonare,
Per poterlo bene inparare,
E a preso dei maestri
Per potermi fare insegnare,
Ma non so come mi fare,
Nella testa non mi vuole entrare,
A che partito mi devo apigliare:
Io non so come mi fare;
Ma tu Orfeo che siei tanto chapace
Per lo zuffolo, e il violino,
Suoni bene pur lo organino,
La chitarra e il mandolino,
La gran cassa, il trombone,
Suoni bene lo clarino,
E non ’ce uno strumento
Che tu Orfeo tu non sia
Chapace di bene suonare,
Per la musicha siei molto bravo,
E tu ai ogni potenza,
Che da diavoli siei protetto,
Dunque insegnami come fare,
Questo zuffolo va scongiurare,
Per poter bene suonare,
Questo zuffolo lo prendo,
Sotto terra io lo metto,
E tre giorni ce lo fo stare,
A fine che tu Orfeo,
Bene tu me lo facci a suonare;
Che tanto siei amante
Di suonare sarai amante,
Pur d’insegnare per quanto
Ai soferto la tua _Auradice_,
Dal inferno non potere levare,
Ma vollo lei a preghare,
Che ti aiuti questo zuffolo volere suonare,
E tu che sempre e di musicha,
Siei chapace che fino
Le bestie ti vengono ascoltare,
Orfeo! Orfeo! ti prego;
Orfeo! volermi insegnare
Questo zuffolo bene suonare,
E appena suonero,
Il maestro musicho Orfeo ringraziero,
E a tutti sempre faro,
Sapere a chi mi a dato,
Questo talento che le stato,
Orfeo dal inferno lo scongiurato,
E per la musicha o tanto,
Pasione al mio zuffolo a dato,
Lezione e lo zuffolo e un strumento
Che ne son tanto inamorato
Che dai miei vecchi era molto ramentato,
E sempre mi dicevano,
Se dinparar lo non siei chapace,
Orfeo devi scongiurare;
E cosi io faro,
E Orfeo preghero!”

TRANSLATION.

“Every day I try, and yet
I cannot play the flageolet;
Many masters I have sought,
Naught I learned from all they taught;
I am dull, ’tis very true,
And I know not what to do
In this strait, unless it be,
Great Orpheus, to come to thee;
Thou who the greatest skill didst win,
On flageolet and violin,
Who play’st the organ, pealing far,
The mandolin and the guitar,
Thou wak’st the clarion’s stirring tone,
The rattling drum and loud trombone;
On earth there is no instrument,
Whate’er it be, to mortals sent,
Enchanting every sense away,
Which thou, O Orpheus! canst not play;
Great must thy skill in music be,
Since even the demons favour thee;
And since on this my heart is set,
Enchant, I pray, this flageolet,
And that its tones may sweetly sound,
I bury it beneath the ground;
Three days shall it lie hidden thus,
Till thou, O mighty Orpheus!
Shalt wake in it by magic spell
The music which thou lov’st so well.
I conjure thee by all the woe
Which grieved thy soul so long ago!
And pain, when thy _Auradice_
From the dark realm thou couldst not free,
To grant me of thy mighty will
That I may play this pipe with skill,
Even as thou hast played before;
For, as the story runs, of yore,
Whenever thou didst wake its sound,
The forest beasts came raptured round.
Orpheus! Orpheus! I pray,
Orpheus! teach me how to play!
And when sweet music forth I bring,
On every chord thy name shall ring,
And every air which charms shall be
A hymn of thanks, great lord, to thee!
And unto all I’ll make it known,
I owe it all to thee alone,
And of the wondrous skill I’ll tell,
Which mighty Orpheus won from hell.
And by the music, and the power,
Of passion in me, from this hour
Henceforth in this sweet instrument
I shall be ever well content;
For now, I do remember well,
What ’twas my father oft would tell,
That all who would learn music thus
Must conjure mighty Orpheus,
Even as I have done to-day,
So I to him will ever pray.”

To which the manuscript adds in prose:

“Thus the peasants do when they do not succeed in playing the
shepherd’s pipe, which they esteem beyond any other instrument.”

To any one who fully feels and understands what is meant to be conveyed by this incantation—and a great deal is expressed by passionate singing and a deep thrilling intonation which the text does not give—my translation will appear to be quite accurate. But, in any case, no scholar or poet can deny that there is in it a strange depth of classic feeling, or of old Roman romance, not strained at second-hand through books, but evidently drawn from rude antiquity, which is as fresh in its ring as it is marvellous.

It may be observed as exquisitely curious that in this incantation the peasant who wishes to become a skilled performer on the flageolet _buries it for three days in the ground_, invoking Orpheus by what the spirit suffered in losing Eurydice, and subsequently distinctly declaring that he won or conjured his great musical power from Hades, which means that by the penance and loss, and his braving the terrors of the Inferno, he gained _skill_. This is a mighty element of the myth in all its forms, in all ages, in every country. The burying the instrument for three days probably typifies the three days during which Orpheus was in hell.

It may be observed that Eurydice has become _Auradice_ in the incantation, in which there is probably an intimation of _Aura_, a light wind or zephyr. Air is so naturally associated with music. This, by a very singular coincidence, yet certainly due to mere chance, recalls the invocation to the Spirit of the Air, given by Bulwer in “The Last Days of Pompeii”:

“Spectre of the viewless air,
Hear the blind Thessalian’s prayer,
By Erichtho’s art that shed
Dews of life when life was fled,
By lone Ithaca’s wise king,
Who could wake the crystal spring
To the voice of prophecy
_By the lost Eurydice_!
Summoned from the shadowy throng,
At the muse-son’s magic song:
Come, wild Demon of the Air,
Answer to thy votary’s prayer.”

It is indeed very remarkable that in the call to the God of Music, who is in certain wise a spirit of the air, as in that to the Spirit of the Air himself, both are invoked:

“By the lost Eurydice!”

If it could be shown that Bulwer owed this poem and allusion to any ancient work or tradition, I should be tempted to believe that the popular invocation was derived from some source in common with the latter. There is indeed a quaint naïve drollery in the word _Aura_dice—“Air-tell!” or “Air-declare!” which adapts it better to the spirit of Bulwer’s poem, in which the air is begged to tell something, than to the Orphean or Orphic spell. It may be that the Orphic oracles were heard in the voice of the wind, apropos of which latter there is a strange Italian legend and an incantation to be addressed to all such mystic voices of the night, which almost seems re-echoed in “Lucia”:

“Verrano a te sull’ aure,
I miei sospiri ardenti,
Udrai nell mar che mormora
L’eco de miei lamenti!”

It is worth observing that this tradition, though derived from the Romagna, was given to me in Florence, and that one of the sculptures on the Campanile represents Orpheus playing the pipe to wild beasts. It is said that in the Middle Ages the walls of churches were the picture-books of the people, where they learned all they knew of Bible legends, but not unfrequently gathered many strange tales from other sources. The sculptors frequently chose of their own will scenes or subjects which were well known to the multitude, who would naturally be pleased with the picturing what they liked, and it may be that Orpheus was familiar then to all. In any case, the finding him in a witch incantation is singularly in accordance with the bas-relief of the Cathedral of Florence, which again fits in marvellously well with Byron’s verse:

“Florence! whom I will love as well
As ever yet was said or sung,
Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell,
Whilst thou art fair and I am young.

“Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times,
When worlds were staked for ladies’ eyes.
Had bards as many realms as rhymes,
Thy charms might raise new Antonies!”

True it is that _this_ Florence seems to have had dazzling eyes and ringlets curled; and it is on the other hand not true that Orpheus sang his spouse from hell—he only tried to do it. And it is worth noting that one of the commonest halfpenny pamphlets sold in Florence, which is to be found at every public stand, is a poem called “Orpheus and Eurydice.” This fact alone renders it less singular that such classical incantations should exist.

The early Christians, notwithstanding their antipathy to heathen symbols, retained with love that of Orpheus. Orpheus was represented as a gentle youth, charming-wild beasts with the music of the pipe, or as surrounded by them and sheep; hence he was, like the Good Shepherd, the favourite type of Christ. He had also gone down into shadowy Hades, and returned to be sacrificed by the heathen, unto whose rites he would not conform.

Miss Roma Lister found traces of Orpheus among the peasantry about Rome, in a pretty tradition. They say that there is a spirit who, when he plays the _zufolo_ or flageolet to flocks, attracts them by his music and keeps them quiet.

“Now there were certain shepherd families and their flocks together
in a place, and it was agreed that every night by turns, each family
should guard the flocks of all the rest. But it was observed that
one mysterious family all turned in and went to sleep when their turn
came to watch, and yet every morning every sheep was in its place.
Then it was found that this family had a spirit who played the
_zufolo_, and herded the flock by means of his music.”

The name is wanting, but Orpheus was there. The survival of the soul of Orpheus in the _zufolo_ or pipe, and in the sprite, reveals the mystic legend which indicates his existing to other times. In this it is said that his head after death predicted to Cyrus the Persian monarch that he too would be killed by a woman (_Consule Leonic_, _de var. histor._, lib. i. cap. 17; _de Orphei Tumulo in monte Olympo_, &c., cited by _Kornmann de Miraculis Mortuorum_, cap. 19). The legend of Orpheus, or of a living wife returning from another world to visit an afflicted husband, passed to other lands, as may be seen in a book by Georgius Sabinus, _in Notis ad Metamorp_. _Ovidii_, lib. x. _de descensu Orphei ad Inferos_, in which he tells how a Bavarian lady, after being buried, was so moved by her husband’s grief that she came to life again, and lived with him for many years, _semper tamen fuisse tristem ac pallidem_—but was always sad and pale. However, they got on very well together for a long time, till one evening _post vesperi potum_—after he had taken his evening drink—being somewhat angry at the housemaid, he scolded her with unseemly words. Now it was the condition of his wife’s coming back to life and remaining with him that he was never to utter an improper expression (_ut que deinceps ipse abstineret blasphemis conviciandi verbis_). And when the wife heard her husband swear, she disappeared, soul and body, and that in such a hurry that her dress (which was certainly of fine old stiff brocade) was found standing up, and her shoes under it. A similar legend, equally authentic, may be found in the “Breitmann Ballads,” a work, I believe, by an American author. On which subject the learned Flaxius remarks that “if all the men who swear after their evening refreshments were to lose their wives, widowers would become a drug in the market.”

Of the connection between _aura_ as air, and as an _air_ in music, I have something curious to note. Since the foregoing was written I bought in Florence a large wooden cup, it may be of the eleventh century or earlier, known as a _misura_, or measure for grain, formerly called a _modio_, in Latin _modus_, which word has the double meaning of measure for objects solid or liquid, and also for music. Therefore there are on the wooden measure four female figures, each holding a musical instrument, and all with their garments blowing in one direction, as in a high wind, doubtless to signify _aura_, Italian _aria_, air or melody. These madonnas of the four _modes_ are rudely but very gracefully sketched by a bold master-hand. They represent, in fact, Eurydice quadrupled.

There is a spirit known in the Toscana Romagna as _Turabug_. He is the guardian of the reeds or canes, or belongs to them like the ancient Syrinx. There is a curious ceremony and two invocations referring to him. Ivy and rue are specially sacred to him. One of these two invocations is solely in reference to playing the _zufolo_, partly that the applicant may be inspired to play well, and secondly, because the spirit is supposed to be attracted by the sound of the instrument. The very ancient and beautiful idea that divinities are invoked or attracted by music, is still found in the use of the organ in churches.

A large portion of the foregoing on Orpheus formed, with “Intialo,” the subject of a paper by me in Italian, which was read in the Collegio Romana at Rome at the first meeting of the Italian _Societa Nazionale per le Tradizioni Popolari Italiani_, in November 1893. Of which society I may here mention that it is under the special patronage of her Majesty Margherita the Queen of Italy, who is herself a zealous and accomplished folklorist and collector—“special patronage” meaning here not being a mere figurehead, but first officer—and that the president is Count Angelo de Gubernatis.

I believe that the establishment of this society will contribute vastly to shake in Italy the old-fashioned belief that to be a person of the _most_ respectable learning it is quite sufficient to be thoroughly acquainted with a few “classic” writers, be they Latin, French, or Italian, and that it is almost a crime to read anything which does not directly serve as a model or a copy whereby to “refine our style.” As regards which the whole world is now entering on a new renaissance, the conflict between the stylists and the more liberally enlightened having already begun.

But Orpheus, with the ecclesiastical witch-doctors, was soon turned into a diabolical sorcerer; and Leloyer writes of him: “He was the greatest wizard who ever lived, and his writings boil over with praises of devils and filthy loves of gods and mortals, . . . who were all only devils and witches.”

That Eve brought death and sin into the world by eating one apple, or a fig, or orange, or Chinese nectarine, or the fruit of the banana tree, or a pear, a peach, or everything pomological, if we are to believe all translators of the Bible, coincides strongly with the fact that Eurydice was lost for tasting a pomegranate. “Of the precise graft of the espalier of Eden,” says the author of the ‘Ingoldsby Legends,’ “Sanchoniathon, Manetho, and Berosus are undecided; the best informed Talmudists have, however . . . pronounced it a Ribstone pippin,” Eve being a rib. The ancients were happy in being certain that their apple was one of Granada.

“_Hæc fabula docet_,” writes our Flaxius, “that mysteries abound in
every myth. Now, whether Orpheus was literally the first man who
ever went to hell for a woman I know not, but well I ween that he was
not the last, as the majority of French novelists of the present day
are chiefly busy in proving, very little, as it seems to me, either
to the credit of their country or of themselves. But there are
others who read in this tale a dark and mysterious forewarning to the
effect that ladies _à la mode_ who fall in love with Italian
musicians or music-masters, and especially those who let themselves
and their fortunes be _sifflées_ (especially the fortunes), should
not be astonished when the fate of Eurydice befalls them. Pass on,
beloved, to another tale!

“‘Walk on, amid these mysteries strange and old,
The strangest of them all is yet to come!’”